"Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother’s milk"(Ex. 23:19; 34:26; Deut. 14:21)

This is not a command prohibiting eating cheese with meat, as the Jews made it to mean. Nor is it merely meant to treat animals with kindness. It is meant to teach a Gospel lesson.

A baby cow, sheep or goat lived on its mother’s milk. To boil a lamb in its own mother’s milk is to use the mother’s milk for the baby’s death. It is to use what God gave for the nourishment and sustenance and life of the baby animal as a means of its destruction. That’s the physical picture. What does it mean?

The Apostle Paul said, regarding those who preach the Gospel and derive their living from it, “Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written” (1 Cor. 9:9-10). Therefore, we know this scripture regarding seething a kid is not for the sake of the animal. It is for our sakes.

Believers are compared to sheep and newborn lambs in scripture (John 21:15-17). They desire and live upon and grow by the sincere milk of the word: the Gospel of Christ and Him crucified (1 Pet. 2:1-3). Every believer is born of the Spirit of God through the preaching of the Gospel of Christ crucified and His successful, God-glorifying, sin-atoning death by which He saved His people from their sins. The Church of God brings that Gospel. “Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother us all” (Gal. 4:26-31; Rev. 12:1-11; Isa. 54:1-8). The Church is the mother married to Christ the Husband, by whom she bears children to God by declaring Christ and what He accomplished by His redeeming blood (Isa. 54:1-8). The milk of the word, of Christ crucified, risen and reigning for the salvation of His people and the glory of God, applied by the Spirit of God, is our life and nourishment. Nothing else satisfies a newborn believer. Nothing else sustains the sheep.

The sons of God were predestinated to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to God the Father before time (Eph. 1:5). They were made acceptable in Christ, redeemed by His precious blood (Eph. 1:6-7). In time, they are born of the Holy Spirit through the preaching of the Gospel of Christ (Eph. 1:4-7; John 3; 1 Pet. 1:18-23; James 1:18; John 1:12-13).

What would it mean, then, to “seethe a kid in its mother’s milk?” It must mean to take what God gave the Church to nourish and sustain the life of every believer and use it as the means of their destruction. In other words, to take the Gospel given to the Church for Christ’s lambs, and use that Gospel to destroy and devour those lambs. But who would do such a heartless, cruel thing? Only one who is an hireling, who does not care for the sheep, but who devours the sheep for pride and personal gain. Thus, the Pharisees “devoured widows houses” (Matt. 23:14).

False teachers and false preachers are wolves that seek their personal benefit without regard to the salvation and care of the sheep. “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves” (Matt. 7:15).

Paul scolded the Corinthians for putting up with men who used them for their own profit and to their own praise: “Ye suffer (allow) fools gladly, seeing ye yourselves are wise. For ye suffer, if a man bring you into bondage, if a man devour you, if a man take of you, if a man exalt himself, if a man smite you on the face” (2 Cor. 11:19-20).

Therefore, the equivalent to boiling a lamb in its mother’s milk is what men do when they use the Gospel in an attempt to destroy the faith of God’s elect and bring Christ’s sheep into bondage for their own personal gain.

The devil twists scripture to murder men. False teachers use the milk of the word to bring men under the bondage of works religion to turn the sheep from Christ to themselves, and so destroy the lambs. Thank God, no one is able to destroy Christ’s sheep (2 Tim. 2:19; Rom. 8:28-39). “Except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened” (Matt. 24:22).

The battle is real. The devil’s children seek to kill and devour God’s lambs by denying them the truth of eternal salvation and glory in Christ and by Christ, and so to take away from them the milk Christ’s newborn babes live upon and by which they are nourished, and use that very nourishment to destroy them. All any believing sinner can live upon is God’s word concerning Christ: the Gospel of His grace, that tells of the Son of God who is the Son of Man, who by His sin-atoning blood and justifying righteousness saves the sinfulest to the uttermost from His exalted throne in glory.

We must desire the sincere milk of the Gospel and pray that God would keep us from the evil one and his ministers of darkness (Matt. 6:13). Abide in Christ. Do not leave Him. Do not look to another. Do not go beyond Him. Do not seek salvation or life or satisfaction or pleasure from any but Christ and Him crucified. If you are tempted by your proud heart to depend on your own works, or tempted to add to Christ’s work by your contributions, to think of your salvation as a joint-effort between you and the Lord Jesus; if you are troubled by sin and unbelief, then abandon your rebellious pride and flee for refuge to Christ. Christ crucified, risen and reigning is the message that the Spirit of God has given Christ’s Church to proclaim. To add to Christ or take away from His accomplishments is death in the pot (2 John 1:9).

Rick Warta